Debutantes Read online

  ‘No, I am not at all sure, dear Mr Forrester,’ she sighed, with a small self-accusatory cluck of her tongue. ‘Because I have just remembered vat I was not carrying one after all. So sorry. Shall we go?’

  The game was to continue outside the offices of Forrester and Co. When they walked out of the building Daisy stopped ahead of Herbert at once on the steps and looked up and down the street.

  ‘Oh mercy!’ she exclaimed. ‘Everyone seems to have vanished! Vat is strange.’

  A doorman stepped up from behind them and handed a visiting-card-sized envelope to Daisy.

  ‘A gentleman left this for you, your ladyship,’ he said. ‘With his apologies.’

  With a quick little look of concern at her escort Daisy took the card out from the envelope and read the message on the back. The two words simply wished her happy hunting, but Daisy read them as if they were not two but twenty-two and relayed something altogether more serious.

  ‘Poor John,’ she said, slipping the card back into the envelope. ‘And Teddy. Vey were both feeling un petit peu sous le temps, because as I understand it of somefing vey bofe ate last evening, some seafood I believe, but bofe had hoped vey were fully recovered. Alas, vis appears not to be the case at all. How very disappointing. Vey were so looking forward to renewing vair acquaintance wiff you after all ve lovely tips you gave vem.’

  ‘Aye,’ Herbert said, nodding solemnly. ‘That is most disappointing. But these things happen, Lady Lanford. Particularly with seafoods.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Daisy sighed, as if at a loss, and then looked up once more into the eyes of the man standing beside her. ‘So nofing for it but for me to take my carriage and you to take yours, and let us hope vat vere will be more excitements waiting at home. Teatime can be dreadfully dull if one is not very careful.’

  ‘Not if you are playing hostess, Lady Lanford, I shouldn’t imagine,’ Herbert told her ladyship and this time he did not bother to hold her eyes in his, but merely nodded to one of his attendants to call up his carriage. When a woman held your gaze for that long a man knew only too well what to expect.

  The silence in the house was already heavy with the promise of desire, and there was no concealing that only the hall boy, and he only half awake from the effects of his lunchtime stout as he pulled open the door, was in attendance. Although Herbert was expecting no less, at the same time he found that as he placed his hat and cane on the hall table and followed the hall boy to the library door behind which he well knew his teagowned hostess would be waiting for him, it still seemed hardly possible that he, Herbert Forrester, a lad who once went bare-footed, was going to be received in this manner by the mistress of the Prince of Wales. Just the promise of it had made him double back to his office to hastily swallow another glass of Madeira before taking his carriage to her address.

  As the hall boy called for a footman and was not answered, Herbert’s excitement was almost too much to bear. In York being received in the library by a willing and unusually beautiful married lady was not the norm. In York, in the circles in which he moved at any rate, a man attended certain places commensurate with his station and his masculine needs would there be discreetly accommodated. Besides his wife’s loving arms that was all a man like himself expected from life, but now here he was and the door having been pushed he allowed himself to look round it.

  What he saw at first was intense darkness.

  ‘Take your coat off,’ a voice whispered, ‘and come and sit by me here.’

  Feeling as though he was mesmerized, Herbert did as requested and took his coat off, placing it on some unseen article of furniture immediately behind him, but then rather than do the second part of the voice’s bidding he stood his ground because with his eyes now becoming accustomed to the darkness he could see the figure before him: he could just make out Daisy reclining on a chaise-longue.

  She had let her blond hair down to tumble around her shoulders and she was wearing a wonderfully patterned embroidered silk Japanese teagown which she had allowed to fall open at the top to reveal two delicious curves, small rounded breasts with, Herbert imagined, perfect small nipples.

  ‘So? Do you like what you see so far, dear man?’ She laughed softly, just once, as if to suggest such a question was ridiculous. ‘Come and tell me vat you do. Come on—’ Daisy patted the velvet couch. ‘Come and sit down here. Beside me just here. Very close. First we will talk, yes? And ven because you are such a big, handsome man, I shall probably dissolve before your attractions. But first, please, you have to sit.’

  But Herbert remained where he was by the door, his eyes getting used to the dark.

  ‘You cannot just stand vare, dear Herbert. You are going to have to come and sit here.’

  Again she patted the chaise with one hand, Herbert thought as if summoning a pet dog to jump up. But still he said nothing nor did he move, even though whatever power had brought him to this place was now urging him forward, to go to this most beautiful of women and sit on the chaise-longue beside her.

  He tried to turn his eyes away, to close them, do anything rather than look at her. But he could not. All he could do was keep staring at her in the half-light, and the longer he did the greater he was tempted and she knew it, for the longer he stared the more she smiled at him, just moving very slightly now and then so that he might continue to be reminded of the body that lay beneath the soft silk of her gown, the curve of her shoulders, the snow whiteness of her skin and of her two perfect breasts, of her unstayed but still tiny waist and the luscious curve of her belly, and then the surprise of the triangle of soft blond hair at the base of her stomach which guarded the dark secret that lay hidden in the deep velvet warmth between the top of a pair of slender legs.

  ‘No,’ he said suddenly. The word sounded as if it had been forced out of him. ‘No, no, it’s no use, damn it, I will not.’

  ‘Ah,’ she sighed, stretching her arms down in front of her to part the tops of her thighs with the palms of her hands. ‘Yes, I want you to swear. To blast and damn me to hell. I love bad language, dear Herbert.’

  ‘No, I will not do this. I mean it, Daisy.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Herbert dear,’ Daisy gave a small laugh once again and tossed her head back. ‘Of course you don’t mean it. Nobody says no to Daisy Lanford. Not when I have in my mind already said yes. Besides, I have a true lust for you. I have never—’ She stopped. She had been going to say ‘been made love to by someone as vulgar as you’ but she changed her mind because he might not see the funny side of it. ‘I have such an envy of your wife, you see, possessing you as she must every night while I am married to such a failure. What excitement for her.’

  Daisy stopped smiling and half closed her eyes. As she did so, her teagown fell almost open, exposing all of one breast and most of the other. But all Herbert did was remain rooted to the spot, silently, for fully another half minute.

  ‘Is somefing ve matter wiff you? Do you have some sort of – well – difficulty, shall we say?’ she suddenly asked him, breaking the silence and speaking testily, for no-one had ever been known to refuse her.

  ‘Yes,’ Herbert managed at last, his big hands clenched as tight as he could clench them against his side. ‘Yes, I do. I have a great difficulty, an enormous difficulty, and one not even your beauty can overcome. I love my wife.’

  After a moment, Daisy suddenly laughed aloud in unfeigned delight. ‘But you poor, poor misguided fellow!’ she exclaimed. ‘What possibly can loving your wife ever have to do wiff coming to sit wiff me?’

  ‘Because I cannot and I will not betray her! I happen to love her!’

  Daisy turned on her side and studied him with unconcealed amusement. ‘But vis has nofing to do wiff betrayal, Herbert Forrester, because it has nofing whatsoever to do wiff love. Surely a man of your age and position understands such fings? You are a man of the world, after all. And vis is ve way of it. Vis is ve way of the world.’

  ‘No, no.’ Herbert at last made a move, shaking his head slowly
from side to side and walking towards the curtained windows. ‘How can you say it has nowt to do with love, Lady Lanford? If it is not to do with love then I’d like to know exactly what it does concern.’

  ‘Sex, Herbert,’ Daisy said as matter-of-factly as it was possible to say the word and making it sound as ordinary as cabbage. ‘Specifically I understand it to be called ve act of sexual congress. And furver I understand vat nowhere in its definition is ve word love to be found. So you may rest assured, dear man, vat what we were about to do and indeed I hope still are to do will leave your love for your sweet little wife quite unsullied.’

  Behind the broad back which stood facing her Daisy suddenly wondered whether what she was doing was really worth it. Here she was trying to seduce a man whom at the best of times she would have thought twice about allowing in her front door and receiving in her drawing room, let alone making a tryst with him in her library. And yet here was the very same man with his clodhopping ways and his speak-as-he-found manner refusing her seduction because his wretched conscience was suddenly pricking him. He should be on his knees at her feet, Daisy decided, kissing her toes, begging for one touch of her hand let alone a kiss from her famous lips, lips that the heir to the throne of England and her empire had delighted her by likening to rosebuds peeping out of the snow. And she, the mistress of the highest in the land, should not be reduced to having to seduce this lumpkin in order to survive in Society.

  Feeling suddenly cold in her semi-nakedness she tightened her gown and pulled around her the heavy shawl which lay along the back of the chaise-longue, then sat up into the corner of the piece of furniture, making herself as small as possible in the absurd hope that if she did so this hulk of a man might forget she was there and so bring an end to the whole unsavoury charade.

  Such was not to be her good fortune she realized, as Herbert Forrester drew himself up to his full height and began to address her again with more of his blunt-witted words.

  ‘I have to be honest with you, Lady Lanford,’ he said. ‘Like you have just been with me. I too thought there’d be nowt to this sort of thing.’

  ‘What pray do you mean by vat, Mr Forrester? Vis sort of fing? What sort of fing, pray?’ For a moment Daisy looked for something to throw at the oaf standing at her window but there was nothing within her arm’s range. ‘What ve devil do you mean by vat, man?’

  ‘Exactly what I say. I’m not a schoolboy straight from school, and neither are you some schoolgirl straight out of some convent. You’ve had many lovers, Lady Lanford, there’s no denying that, as I have had my fair share of women. That’s what I meant by this sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh, ven in vat case what was all vat nonsense about love and betrayal, for pity’s sake?’ Daisy pulled the shawl even more tightly around her and tucked the folds of her gown in between her knees. ‘If you are, as you maintain yourself to be, a man of ve world—’

  ‘It weren’t nonsense, Lady Lanford,’ Herbert interrupted her, turning back round to face her.

  With the light behind him Daisy had no idea of his expression which was just as well, because Herbert Forrester wore the look of surprise and hurt a man does after someone has unexpectedly hit him full in the face.

  ‘It weren’t nonsense, you see, because to my mind a man can’t betray a love except with another love. And the last thing I expected to happen was me to fall in love with you.’

  Now Daisy really was silenced. This was the very last thing she too had anticipated. Perhaps afterwards, yes, she thought. Perhaps it would have been a post-tryst amusement, a conceit to share with her women friends. Of course you know what ve most comical aspect of ve business was? she might have teased. Poor Mr Lumpkin said he had fallen in love wiff me. Can you imagine such a thing? Ee bah goom, Daisy, ah fink ah luv ’ee and Ah wants to marry ’ee. Not a particularly good joke, but amusing enough to cover a dull patch in an evening somewhere sometime as the ladies waited for the gentlemen to join them, except it was obviously not a joke as far as her suitor was concerned, to judge from the tone of his voice.

  ‘I thought I’d have myself as much fun with you as you obviously thought you would with me,’ he continued. ‘You thought I was a mug and I thought you were – well, I think you get my meaning without my spelling it out.’

  ‘Yes, fank you. I fink I understand all too well, Mr Forrester.’

  ‘So tell me it wasn’t true, then.’ He came nearer her, and now Daisy could see the look on his face. It was a look of such genuine hurt and confusion that for a moment she almost felt sorry for him. ‘Get down off your high horse and tell me that’s not what you thought of me. You didn’t carry out this flirtation, Lady Lanford, because you couldn’t resist my charms. You carried it out because you’re in sore need of some brass.’

  ‘Brass?’

  ‘Money. It’s all right. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. Thing is I thought if that were case, see, then I’d get me money’s worth. After all, I may not be a feather in your cap, but you’d certainly be a feather in mine. But then—’

  ‘Yes?’ Daisy prompted him, because he had once again fallen to silence as he stood looking at her, again right in her eyes.

  ‘It’s those eyes. I swear I never seen eyes like yours. It were a game at first, but when you held my gaze back there in the office it were like – it were like I was falling into something. I thought it were champagne at first, but I got a hard head on me, so I knew it weren’t that. And then – just now.’ He took a deep, deep breath, as if he could hardly bear to say it. ‘Then just now when I saw you lying there, God in heaven, woman, I have never seen owt as beautiful as thee.’

  As he stood looking down at her Daisy thought all he needed was a cloth cap to twist in the two large hands he now had clasped before him, and as a consequence she had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. It was all the more amusing because the more lovesick the poor man became the more his speech returned to its roots. Owt as beautiful as thee. That she thought she really must remember.

  But first things first, she reminded herself, sitting round on her chaise, well covered by her voluminous shawl. ‘Come and sit beside me, dear Mr Forrester, or fetch yourself a drink of brandy from ve decanter vare on ve desk. You must calm yourself, and when you have ven we shall begin all over again. If you truly love me—’

  ‘I can’t say that, for I don’t know you well enough. What I can say is that truly I have fallen in love with you. That I do know.’

  ‘Ven if vat is so,’ she whispered, leaning forward to take his hand, ‘if vat is so it would be simply criminal if we did not make love.’

  Herbert snatched his hand away from hers at this suggestion, as if her fingers had suddenly burst into flames.

  ‘And wreck my life? You must be daft, woman! If I made love to you, you imagine for one moment I could walk out this door same man as I come in? You’d needs be completely daft to think that. I could no more make love to you as if it meant nowt and go back to my life and go on living it same as if nowt had happened! As it stands, with me not having laid a finger on you, I’m sick to death over you as ’tis! No, no, Lady Lanford. No, you may have thought I’d be some sort of amusing diversion for you, but you’re a dam’ sight more’n that already to me.’

  At which point and quite by mistake Daisy yawned lightly behind her hand and Herbert suddenly looked at her differently. Gone was the confusion from his face, to be replaced by a look of sudden and utter comprehension.

  He stood up. ‘No, but I am right. You do want money, that’s all you’re really after.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Daisy exclaimed, sitting bolt upright once again. ‘How dare you even suggest such a fing!’

  ‘You no more want me than – I don’t know. Than doorman outside my offices.’ Herbert’s jaw set very square. ‘What you’re after is my cheque book.’

  ‘I fink it’s time you left, Mr Forrester, don’t you?’ Daisy asked coldly. ‘Do you want to leave by yourself, or would you like me to have you shown o
ut?’

  Her hand reached out for the bell on the table by her chaise, but Herbert got there first, and picking it up held it well out of her reach. ‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready. How much exactly is it you’re out for? Word has it it’s about twenty-five thousand, am I right?’

  ‘Oh? You have had me assessed, have you?’ Daisy replied, her blue eyes glinting like a basilisk’s in the darkness. But even if Herbert had caught sight of the gleam he paid it scant attention.

  ‘Men talk same as women do,’ Herbert told her, picking his coat up and slipping it back on. ‘Any road, that’s what I heard.’

  ‘Ven you were grossly misinformed, Mr Forrester.’

  Herbert sucked the breath in through his teeth provocatively. ‘Is that right? Meaning you’re in even deeper waters.’

  ‘Of course I am not in deeper waters, as you put it. Do you really fink someone in my position needs money? A person in my position, in my special position, vat person can go anywhere, Mr Forrester. Every door in ve land is open to me, so vat is as much as you know.’

  ‘Then why did you have to sell your beloved Wynyates in such a hurry, eh? People like you don’t sell off their family homes. Not unless they’ve had their fingers burned.’

  Daisy fell to silence, not at all sure how best now to play this particular fish. Never before in the whole of her life had a man turned her down, let alone such an unprepossessing one as the one standing before her, now taking out his cheque book.

  On the other hand, if he was about to offer her money, how could she refuse? Forrester had been her last hope and if she failed at this moment to swallow her pride – something which Daisy Lanford had always experienced great difficulty in doing – then if she was to be truthful with herself she knew she would face ruin.

  ‘Yes, Herbert, you are right, and I am so sorry,’ she sighed, leaning forward to him. ‘It is my wretched pride, do you see? I have never had to beg in my life before, not for anyfing. But my wretched husband as no doubt you know is the most profligate of gamblers, and he has gone frew not only all his own money but I am very much afraid also frew most of mine.’